I have a new story today about Michelle Obama's visit to Zanesville, Ohio, where she met with a group of women at a local day care center. According to the U.S. Census, Muskingum County, where Zanesville is located, had a median household income of $37,192 in 2004, below both the Ohio and national averages. Just 12.2 percent of adults in the county have a bachelor's degree or higher, also well below the state and national averages. About 20 percent don't have a high school degree. Nevertheless, Mrs. Obama urged them to foreswear lucrative professions like corporate law or hedge fund management and go into the helping industry, even if the sacrifice is great:

-As she has many times in the past, Mrs. Obama complains about the lasting burden of student loans dating from her days at Princeton and Harvard Law School. She talks about people who end up taking years and years, until middle age, to pay off their debts. The salaries dont keep up with the cost of paying off the debt, so youre in your 40s, still paying off your debt at a time when you have to save for your kids, she says.

Barack and I were in that position, she continues. The only reason were not in that position is that Barack wrote two best-selling books It was like Jack and his magic beans. But up until a few years ago, we were struggling to figure out how we would save for our kids. A former attorney with the white-shoe Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin, Obama explains that she and her husband made the choice to give up lucrative jobs in favor of community service. We left corporate America, which is a lot of what were asking young people to do, she tells the women. Dont go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and were encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond. Faced with that reality, she adds, many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.

What she doesnt mention is that the helping industry has treated her pretty well. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obamas compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office. And that does not count the money Mrs. Obama receives from serving on corporate boards. She would have been O.K. even without Jacks magic beans.

Mrs. Obama also bemoaned the amount of money she has to spend  nearly one-third of the median household income in Zanesville  on piano, dance, and other lessons for her two children. But she was grateful for the concern her husband's supporters have shown for her. "Everywhere I go, no matter what, the women in the audience, their first question for me is, 'How on earth are you managing it, how are you keeping it all together?'" she told the women.

The are, quite simply “The Black Clintons”.
All the patterns are the same.
Except that now, “IT’S THEIR TURN”
Wonder what Toni Morrison would say about her “First Black President” now being usurped by a “real” Black presidential possibility?
The supreme poetic justice in all of this is that the Clintons paved the way for all of this, (their political burial) while being too stupid to see it coming.

Gee Michelle, you chose to go to Princeton and Harvard. That costs. Poor you. You could have gone to a state university and a state law school. It wouldn’t have been as prestigious, but you still would have been an attorney, made a really good living and not had the big student loans. You chose the Rolls Royce and had to pay for it. I’m not going to shed one tear for you. And to whine to women who work just to put food on the table about the cost of piano and dance lessons for your privileged children is just unreal. But, as Marie Antionette said, “They have no bread? Well, let them eat cake.”

Don't go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and weÂre encouraging our young people to do that.

***As she has many times in the past, Mrs. Obama complains about the lasting burden of student loans dating from her days at Princeton and Harvard Law School. She talks about people who end up taking years and years, until middle age, to pay off their debts.***

What a whiner! She knew when she got the loan she would have to pay it back. If she had made it a priority, she could have paid it off in just a few years. I wonder if the reason why it took so long is that she let it slide and accrued a huge amount of interest and penalties? If it hadn’t been for Barrack’s “magic bean book deal,” she’d be just another deadbeat. Michelle “Deadbeat” Obama.

I have no patience with people who whine over student loans. There is no more valuable an investment than education. The 200k someone would pay to go to Princeton and Harvard Law School is a pittance compared to what such a graduate could earn if money is what matters to him or her. Oscar Wilde defined a cynic as someone “who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”.

Of course. :0) I’ve worked for a couple of major corporations and have done engineering consulting for dozens of hospitals.

“Community relations” (in general) is a department held in contempt by other departments in a corporation. This is because Community Relations doesn’t do a d@mn thing other than attend luncheons, black tie events, and hog the corporate sky box tickets. They also have the attitude that they have the MOST IMPORTANT job in a company. We have someone in our Community Relations department who has the Michele Obama attitude problem. She’s universally regarded as incompetent and unpleasant, but keeps her job nonetheless.

My personal experience is that Community Relations departments house high numbers of women and minorities—it’s a corporation’s way of saying, “We’re not really racist and sexist!!” LOL

Basically, its like, dont go into corporate America so you can earn less than you would otherwise, which will of course make you resent corporate America even more, so that you will continue to vote for people like us, who will keep telling you how bad your life is and how its all the fault of corporate America and that they should paypaypay with high taxes so we can give you the things you would otherwise be able to provide for yourself. Blech.

What she doesnt mention is that the helping industry has treated her pretty well. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obamas compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office.

Tell you what Michelle honey, I'll be happy to be a teacher or a nurse at 316,962 a year (or even a useless "vice president for community affairs") if you'll only pony up the $$. We can discuss benefits and other compensation later.

What say you?

< crickets>

123
posted on 02/29/2008 9:30:35 AM PST
by sauropod
(Will Hillary bring the silver back to the Whitehouse, or is this all about finishing up the set?)

Rush is talking about Mrs. Hussein and her last job in corp America paid $350,000. I guess that she and Hussein want the sheeple to stay on the plantation just as Kennedy and the rest of the Rats always want.

Washington State has been pushing this philosophy in their schools for years. They call it goal based or outcome based education. It’s all about not over educating the population for the jobs that are available to them. In other words, if McDonalds are the biggest employers in your rural county, you educate the kids to work at McDonalds.

They want to perpetuate a permanent underclass, which will be supported by the real workers.

129
posted on 02/29/2008 9:38:04 AM PST
by Eva
(Benedict Arnold was a war hero, too.)

but because part what I do involves teaching music, I just have to comment. I’m a public sector teacher and provide a service in a competitive market- do i not deserve to be compensated for my work helping kids like Mrs. Obama’s (which I love doing as well, but it’s a SERVICE JOB) and years of training, education, and college degrees? I make a nice living, and I work hard doing it because there is a demand for it!!

Comments like that just sound so incredibly out of touch. I got my degrees on scholarship instead of going to the more prestigious universities, and I’m really glad I did that. She could have as well, and her going to Harvard does not make her a better lawyer than those who went to state school, sorry.

I am secretly hoping Hillary overtakes Obama- Obama scares me worse than Hillary, because if he wins, he’ll have this public mandate to actually institute all of these hairbrained, economy ruinining schemes and become this century’s FDR, keeping social security and adding massive health care boondoggle and other nonsense.

At least a lot of people already detest Hillary, and she’d have a harder time pushing her legislation through Congress, but I’m hearing a lot of devout republicans who disagree with Obama’s policies who still like the guy and can find nothing bad to say about him personally. That scares me, because I think he’s a disaster in the making. I hope I’m wrong.

As a music teacher myself, I laughed a lot. We’re free market people who have invested in a lot of education, practice, and training, yet have chosen not to involve ourselves in the cushy and frustrating public school mess :)

A college education is not a RIGHT anymore than health care is a RIGHT.

My son is going to find that out very, very soon. After a less than stellar fall semester, I gave him the word: straighten up, or the only way I'm going to pay for his college next year is if he matriculates at New Mexico Military Institute.

134
posted on 02/29/2008 9:54:09 AM PST
by Night Hides Not
(I'm voting for McCain...if (and only if) his VP is JC Watts!)

Im hearing a lot of devout republicans who disagree with Obamas policies who still like the guy and can find nothing bad to say about him personally.

It's a combination of his suave demeanor (read: "slick") and the fear of being labeled a racist for criticizing him for ANYTHING. Even McCain's PR guy has said he will absolutely not run any ads attacking Obama. The Obamas are race-card sharks of the highest order.

*snort* So she's willing to have folks stay in the solid lower middle class, in order for them to feel good about themselves? She's got hers, so she doesn't care if anyone else gets ahead. She doesn't seem to offer the compromise situation, which is, get out there and earn a bunch of money so you can help your family be financially stable, THEN move into a 'helping' profession. One can do BOTH, if desired, just not successfully at the same time.

Reckon any feminists are willing to come out and challenge Mrs. Obama, with their 'women should break the glass ceiling' mantra? I, for one, won't be holding my breath, but just imagine what they'd be saying if ANY Republican had come out with this tripe!

Obama is a Chicago Democrat. You don't have to be a genius to know there's plenty of dirt. Someone just needs to have the balls to look for it.

It's what Bush should have done right after his inauguration. He should have gone after and shut down the Daley machine. If nothing else as payback to the Daley family for their attempt to help the Goron re-re-recount his way into the whitehouse...

Dont go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and were encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.

Respond, as in drop? Unless, of course, you happened to be a member of a favored class and married to someone running for president? What terrific advice for Obama's constituents. LOL!

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